Money Hungry

by Sharon Flake

  “Okay, okay,” I say. “Ask Miss Baker where the clean sheets are.”

  Miss Baker bugs us every few minutes, it seems. So before one of us can hunt her down, she comes back to where we are.

  “We got more sheets,” she says. “Only they in the basement. Dirty. The girl we hired to do the washing quit two weeks ago. Things pile up, you know.”

  Before we know anything, Ja’nae’s volunteering us to wash that stuff. I mean, I don’t even wash my own clothes at home. Neither does Zora. But we help Ja’nae peel that stuff off the beds and carry it down to the basement. My whole body smells like pee by the time we done.

  “I wanna go. Now,” Mai says.

  “They don’t have nobody else,” Ja’nae says, making us feel bad.

  I look around. No matter what we do, it’s still gonna be a mess in here. But Ja’nae ain’t never gonna see that. She’s probably thinking about her grandparents. She don’t realize that once we gone, this place is gonna look the way it did when we walked in.

  “Please,” Ja’nae says.

  “Okay,” I say. “Mai, you stay and do the clothes since your hands are so jacked up.

  Zora, you go upstairs and wipe down the furniture and pick up a little. That’s not so bad, is it?”

  Zora gives me this look. “No,” she says. “Ja’nae and me will do the bathrooms.” Everybody’s okay with the plan. Only the plan don’t work out the way I’m thinking.

  Ja’nae’s singing and scrubbing out the toilet and tub. Before I’m done washing the windows in the hallway, she’s headed to check on the sheets in the washing machine. I figure I can rest up till she comes back. So I sit down on the floor and stretch my legs. I get up a few minutes later and head for the kitchen at the end of the hall.

  When I push open the door, there’s an old man in there.

  “Who you?” he says, like he might hit me if I say the wrong thing.

  When I tell him that I’m here to clean, he laughs. Says Miss Baker done found herself another sucker.

  “You thirsty?” he asks. I say yes. He leads me to his room, where he points to a refrigerator with a padlock on the front.

  “Help yourself,” he says, handing me the key. “But I’m watching you,” he says, lowering himself onto his bed.

  Inside his refrigerator there’s bottled water, crackers, and plastic knives and forks sitting on the top shelf right next to cucumbers and cottage cheese. But that ain’t what catches my eye. It’s the money that makes me lick my lips and swallow more spit than I should. It’s stuffed tight in a half-empty bread bag, pushed against a head of rotten lettuce. I can’t help but take the bag out to get a better look.

  “Come here, gal,” the man says, wiping the back of his wrinkled lips with his hand.

  He’s kind of scary-looking, so I don’t hurry over to him. I keep my eyes on the bag of money in my hand.

  Soon as I’m close enough, he grabs his money out my hand and says for me to listen up good. “Never spend it. That’s the secret. Never spend a penny, if you don’t have to.”

  I look at all that loot, then I look at the old man again. “Why you put it there?”

  The old guy grabs ahold of the rail on the side of the bed. He wraps his hands round it real tight, and pulls. He coughs up some spit and swallows hard. He points to the bag of money. “I been saving for years. I got money stashed in places don’t nobody know about. It’s all mine, too. And ain’t nobody getting it,” he says, coughing again and lying back down.

  I grab a bottle of water out the fridge. “Here,” I say, handing it to him. He starts wiggling his lips, and fanning his hand my way. I go over to him, and put the bottle up to his lips like he’s a baby. He balls up his fist and pushes the bottle up so fast, water starts dripping out his mouth and down his neck.

  He wipes his mouth with the back of his fist. “Don’t go telling about my money, hear?”

  I shake my head up and down. And when he starts coughing and spitting again, I start backing out the room.

  “Wait,” he says. He opens the bag and holds it out to me. “Take some,” he says.

  I wonder if I’m understanding him right. “Some what?” I say.

  “Money, girl. Money,” he says, clearing his throat. “Money won’t never do you wrong.”

  I put my hand in the bag and grab as much money as I can. It feels real good in my hands.

  “Let me see what you got,” he says.

  I show him the money.

  “That ain’t nothing but chump change,” he says, laughing, and coughing again. “I still got enough for myself.”

  “Keep all of it?” I say, figuring I got maybe seventy dollars in my hand.

  “Redheaded gals bring you good luck. That’s what folks say.”

  By the end of the day, we’re all dead tired. Miss Baker takes us back to Mallow Street in her old clunker. Zora, Mai, and Ja’nae don’t say a word to me when we all get out of the car. They are mad because Miss Baker didn’t pay us what she promised. Just before she stopped to drop us off, she said she was short of cash. She paid us forty dollars each, not the sixty dollars we was expecting. Zora says this is the last time she will go along with any more of my moneymaking schemes. Mai and Ja’nae agree with her. And not one of ’em even says a word to me for the next thirty minutes we stand there waiting for a bus.

  As soon as I get home, things start falling apart. Momma is standing at the doorway of our building. She’s wearing open-toed bedroom slippers.

  “Raspberry!” Momma yells, her fist balled up and her thumb pointing toward the door. “Get in this house right now!”

  I move past Momma real slow. She don’t take her eyes off me for a minute. And I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that I got a real hollering coming my way.

  When Momma comes inside behind me, she’s madder than before.

  Momma’s hollering, “I work two jobs to keep us from living in the street. And you go and steal money. Why?”

  I try to tell Momma I don’t know what she’s talking about. But she’s gone crazy. Walking from room to room yelling at me. Next thing I know, she’s in my bedroom, pulling out my money drawers. Emptying my cans of stashed bills from the hole in the wall. Dumping cash all over the place.

  “I ain’t—didn’t—raise no thief.”

  I’m walking behind Momma. Picking up tens and twenties. Shoving quarters into my pockets. Momma turns around and sees what I’m doing. She grabs my hand, and pulls open my fingers to get the money. “You’re hurting me,” I yell.

  But Momma keeps pulling back my fingers. “This is gonna stop here and now,” she says, taking the money, and throwing it across the room. “I shoulda made you stop all this money nonsense long before, when I seen how crazy it was making you.”

  She puts the can down, and goes over to the window. The wind blows the curtains back against the wall.

  “Who said I was a thief? Who said I took their stuff?” I say, taking hold of the can.

  “Who said I was a thief? Who said I took their money?” I ask Momma again and again.

  Momma tells me that it was Ja’nae’s grandfather who said I was a thief. He told Momma that every now and then he sneaks a peek at Ja’nae’s diary to see what she’s up to. This morning he read something in it about me stealing two hundred dollars of his money.

  I’m shaking my head saying that he don’t know what he’s talking about. I tell Momma that it was Ja’nae who took the money, not me.

  Momma looks at me real disappointed like. She turns around and drops a handful of money out the window. I lose it, then. I push her out of my way. I scratch my hand, trying to get at my money. “Momma nooo!” I yell, looking at my money fall to the ground.

  Momma is stronger than I am. She takes one hand, pushes me hard, and I end up falling on my butt, and hitting my back against the table. “I guess you gonna stand here and deny taking that fifty dollars from Ja’nae, too,” she says, talking about the money I took off Ja’nae’s kitchen table.

 
At first I tell Momma I didn’t take it.

  Then I come clean and say I did but I returned it right away.

  She shakes her head and sits for a minute on the windowsill. “I would rather throw it all away, than for you to think it’s okay to steal.”

  There are tears running down Momma’s face. She lets loose another fistful of money. “I got a letter from a lawyer today saying that them folks in Pecan Landings don’t want us living over there. They think we trash, and you,” she says, getting louder, “with all your money-hungry ways, you just prove them right.”

  Now I see what this is all about. “That money’s mine,” I say, getting up in Momma’s face. I put my hand over hers to make her stop. But even with my hands trying to squeeze hers shut, her fingers uncurl, and my money is gone.

  I hear Shoe and other people outside going nuts. “I got me a twenty,” he’s saying.

  “Lord, here come another ten,” somebody else says.

  I try to tell Momma that this is all a big mistake. She’s so angry about losing the house, she ain’t listening to me. She throws the empty can on my bed, and starts grabbing handfuls of loose change from my top dresser drawer. Next thing I know, I hear it bouncing off the pavement. Flying off cars.

  For a minute, I don’t try to stop Momma anymore. I think that maybe if I act like it don’t matter, she will quit. But it’s hard for me to act like I don’t care.

  Momma empties two whole cans of money before she stops. I figure she just gave away two hundred dollars of my cash.

  “Check and anybody else out there better give me back my stuff,” I yell out the window.

  Momma pulls me back inside by my shirt. “I will throw it all out . . . every last penny . . . if you don’t get yourself together,” she says. She opens her mouth wide to say something else, but closes it when the phone rings. I look at her, and go to answer it.

  “The machine will pick it up,” she says, holding me back with her arm like a crossing guard does at the light.

  I walk over to the window. People are still waiting for more of my money to fall. Check’s got a stick, digging around in the dirt, looking for my stuff.

  Momma’s got another fistful of my dollars in her hand. She’s heading for the window. When I try to trip her, I smack the money out her hand at the same time. She gives me a look that lets me know that she will knock me out, if I keep doing what I’m doing. So I stop, and pray to God that she will cut it out.

  When the answering machine picks up, we hear Ja’nae’s grandfather’s voice. He’s apologizing to Momma and me. Saying he talked to Ja’nae about her diary, and she said he misunderstood what she wrote. “It was Ja’nae that took the money out my drawer,” he says, sounding embarrassed. “She’s the thief, not your girl.”

  Momma takes a big breath and sits down on my bed.

  “I was so upset at not getting the house . . . then Ja’nae’s grandfather called about you stealing money. I lost my head, I guess,” she says. . . .

  She’s shaking her head from side to side, saying she’s sorry for throwing my money away. She starts talking to me in words soft and sweet as pudding. I bust out crying when Momma holds me tight. She reminds me again and again that things have a way of turning out, and I know she’s right. But deep down inside, I’m still scared. ’Cause without money, you ain’t nothing. And people can do anything they want to you.

  No sooner than I start cleaning up what’s left of my money, Dr. Mitchell comes over. He looks nervous leaving his car on the street with everybody standing around like they’re waiting for something more to happen. And before he’s inside our place, two kids is sitting on the hood of his ride.

  Soon as Momma sees Dr. Mitchell, tears come. She tells him about being turned away from Pecan Landings, and about throwing my money around.

  Dr. Mitchell’s got his arms around Momma. He’s standing in the middle of the room holding her tight, telling her everything will be all right. Momma’s crying real hard, and she can’t stop. I know it sounds weird, but I feel better, safer with Dr. Mitchell around.

  Dr. Mitchell asks me for towels. He wants Momma to lay in her bed and cool down before she makes herself really sick. I’m watching him take care of her. Putting towels in cool water and pressing them on her forehead. Putting on nice music and shutting her bedroom door so she can rest. For once, I’m jealous of Zora.

  When Dr. Mitchell offers to help me straighten up the place, I turn him down. But he acts like I ain’t said a word. He grabs a broom and starts sweeping up. Then starts talking about how someday things will be better for Momma and me.

  “They’re just a bunch of triflin’ snobs down in Pecan Landings,” I snap.

  Dr. Mitchell shakes his head and walks over to the window. He plays with the change in his pocket. Taps on the window and tells people to get off his ride. “When things settle down, I’ll take your mother to City Hall. We’ll talk to people there. File a complaint, if she wants,” he says.

  Then Dr. Mitchell opens the window, and says, “Now don’t let me have to come down there. I said get off my car.”

  I’m tired of not having ever spoken to Dr. Mitchell about his thing with Momma. So, I ask him straight up, “Are you in love with my mom or what?”

  I don’t cut him no slack. I don’t try to help him out by making small talk or changing the subject. I need to know. And he’s gonna tell me.

  Dr. Mitchell jerks up his pants legs when he goes to sit down. Then he scratches his head, and clears his throat. “I like your mom, Raspberry.” That’s all he says.

  “But you dating her, right?” I ask.

  “I like your mother a whole lot. She likes me. But she won’t make a solid commitment to me,” he says, turning toward me. “Says she’s too busy trying to make something out of herself to get fully involved with me.”

  I’m thinking Momma must be nuts. Turning down a doctor. A smart nice guy with big cash. And her living in the projects, and holding down two jobs.

  “So why you all up under her?” I ask.

  “Company,” he says. “Friendship. Good conversation, I guess.” He talks more than he ever did to me. Telling me about Momma. How smart and strong she is. How determined she is to do something good with her life.

  “We have the same values, you know,” he says, standing up and getting busy again. “We love our families, work hard, and try to do what’s right.” His beeper goes off, and he pulls it out of his pocket to check the phone number. “Zora,” he says. “I need to give her a call.”

  While he’s in the kitchen on the phone, I get on my hands and knees to pick up more of my money. All I find is ten dollars in change.

  Dr. Mitchell says he’s gotta be heading home soon, but it’s another hour before he goes. He spends some time at Momma’s bedside, wiping her forehead with the washcloth. Finally he says good-bye to me. “Take care of your momma. Tell her I’ll call her soon,” he says.

  Momma wakes up as soon as she hears Dr. Mitchell close the front door behind him. In a little while, she’s in the kitchen, pulling out frying pans, and making dinner.

  I don’t have no appetite. But I watch her flour up the chicken, melt down the lard, and put the good plates and silverware on the table.

  After a while, we’re sitting down. But we’re not eating the food. Not talking. I’m playing with a string unraveling from Momma’s pink tablecloth. Digging in my pocket for the money I made earlier today at Miss Baker’s boardinghouse. Thinking about what the old man said to me. “Money won’t never do you wrong.”

  The first person I see when I jump out Momma’s car and walk up the steps to the school is Ja’nae. Me and her already had it out on the telephone about her putting me in her diary. But I believe her when she says her granddad got it all wrong. She’s with Ming. I don’t have time to play around. So I just say what I mean. “Give me what you owe me,” I tell Ja’nae, with my hand out.

  “You know Zora ain’t speaking to you,” she says, walking up the steps with Ming’s arm around he
r shoulder.

  “Don’t talk to me about Zora. Just give me my money back,” I say, matching every step she takes.

  Ming looks at me and says that I should chill. Ja’nae asks him to go to her locker and get her science book.

  I start to explain to Ja’nae that I’m just about broke, but Ja’nae already knows that. Shoe and Check have been telling everybody about how all my money came pouring out the window.

  “Ja’nae,” I put my hand out. “Give me back the money I lent you, now.”

  Ja’nae’s shaking her head. Her long, shiny spiral curls pat the sides of her face every time she moves. She tells me that the person who owes her the money ain’t paid it back yet.

  “Give me the money we made at Miss Baker’s—or sell Ming’s jacket. Take the jacket to a pawnshop, or sell it on the corner. Do what you gotta, but get my money. Today,” I yell.

  Ming walks back over to us. Sato’s right behind him. Seneca and Kevin are there, too.

  I don’t want to embarrass Ja’nae and Ming, but I gotta have that money. I can’t be walking around broke. So I forget about him and her, and just let him know that I know Ja’nae got him that jacket with money that wasn’t hers, and that I want my money back. Now.

  “You are so lame,” Sato says, walking up to me. “Lame and greedy,” he says, letting loose a smile so sweet I could just die. “Embarrassing Ming in front of the whole school, busting on your friend, all for a few pennies,” he says, shaking his head and walking off.

  Don’t nobody care Ja’nae owes me two hundred dollars and don’t wanna pay up? Don’t nobody care that I’m practically broke?

  Ming is staring me down. Holding on to Ja’nae’s hand tight, and giving me an evil look. “She didn’t buy me the coat.” He’s playing with his baby ring.

  “I’ll tell her,” Ja’nae says to him. Then she lowers her voice, and looks me straight in the face. “The coat was Willie’s, my cousin who died last year from an asthma attack.” Ja’nae looks down at the floor. “Ming didn’t want anyone to know,” she says even lower, “’cause my cousin had the jacket on when he died.”